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Sony and the Playstation 4 have a fairly firm grasp on the present. While the next holiday season could yet bring about change in this still-young war between the Xbox One and the PS4, it's difficult to imagine that the currently dominant PS4 will be sitting anything less than pretty come 2015. It got there by recognizing that the console industry in 2014 doesn't look all that different than it did in 2012: despite a larger focus on smaller titles and downloadable content, people are still mostly interested in big games, a decently powerful box that will play them, and not a whole lot else on top. And thus we have thePS4.

The future of the console industry remains harder to conceptualize. There's no way to say that the world of video games isn't changing, and the home console's role in it is bound to change too. With that in mind, Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House spoke at the Develop Conference in Brighton (via IGN) about how the PS4 and Playstation ecosystem will evolve in the coming years. PS4 has a certain amount of swagger right now, so House has a bit of breathing room in which to dream big.

House detailed three future pillars of the PS4: streaming, lifestyle, and virtual reality. The first is the furthest along, with Sony's Playstation Now program already in beta testing (though a curious paid version of beta testing), as well as probably the easiest to imagine. We used to buy movies on discs when we wanted to watch them, and now huge numbers of people stream them off the internet instead. It's not hard to picture something similar happening with games, even if the logical endpoint would be the elimination of all local gaming hardware.

We've seen what Sony has up its sleeve when it comes to Virtual Reality, even if we're not entirely sure where the technology is going. Project Morpheus is an impressive piece of hardware that clearly has a lot of excitement behind it in the gaming and tech worlds. Developers continue to figure out the best way to utilize it.

Lifestyle is a little more nebulous, and I'm interested to see where Sony goes with it. It's unclear if House is just spinning his wheels and theorizing about broader tech trends, but an increased focus on fitness and sensor technology would be a significant change for a console that distinguished itself by avoiding those things.

"We're also seeing a revolution in the development of sensor technology, whether it's lifestyle fitness management or the trend for wearables, I think we're on the cusp right now of seeing a huge number of these different sets of technology get down to the physical size and low cost where they're going to be very ubiquitous," House said, via IGN. "This could play some sort of role in a new generation of interactive experiences.

While it will be interesting to see how these three things end up looking when they actually hit the market, it's fascinating how effectively Sony has managed the PS4 strategy thus far. Sony earned the love and trust of the hardcore gaming community by releasing a no-frills traditional console from the outset, and now it's using that strong base to push the platform forward and, hopefully, gain access to a broader market. Sony has put a lot of faith in the role that the PS4 will play in the future of the company as a whole -- the best way to realize that will be to use the machine as a platform for a multitude of experiences.